Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Studying the scene at Doral from afar this week, one item is particularly interesting:

Mark Steinberg, Tiger Woods' agent, was on the scene at the WGC-CA Championship, adding to the growing fire of speculation about the possiblity that Woods may return to the PGA Tour sooner rather than later.

Woods, it has been reported, is back at work on his game at Isleworth, taking the counsel of swing coach Hank Haney and apparently gearing up for his eventual return.

Couple that with the Steinberg sighting and it's easy to speculate that Woods may indeed play in the Masters next month. Maybe Steinberg was there onn other business or maybe he was just testing the Tour's temperature regarding his client but it is interesting timing.

After watching Woods' public statement last month, I thought there was very little chance he would play at Augusta. Now, I'm leaning the other way.

It's conceivable Woods may play the private and easy to insulate Tavistock Cup in Orlando the week after next then make his tour return at the Arnold Palmer Invitational at Bay Hill. That theory is gaining momentum though it's all guesswork.

By playing Bay Hill, it would allow Woods to get in one tournament before the Masters and go through a week back in the public eye.

Maybe it's all just smoke right now, no real fire. But it's nice that the conversation about Woods these days is more about his golf than the other stuff.

I sure hope that Tiger returns to the tour soon. I want to see Stevie take on the hecklers in the galleries. Of course the tour will see to it that no one even gets close to Woods who will have more security around him than the Pope has. So Junior, get your prayer cloth and knee pads out cause old Tiger might throw a word or two your way.